Actor, comedian and former game show host Ben Stein has pulled out of a commencement speech at the University of Vermont because his pro-intelligent design views kicked up a furor on campus, the Associated Press reports.

University president Daniel Fogel says he didn't ask Stein, a former presidential speechwriter who hosted "Win Ben Stein's money," to withdraw, but did call him to alert him to the discord: "I was not going to let him be blind-sided by controversy."

Stein, who has criticized Darwinian evolutionary theory, tells the Burlington Free Press via email that the controversy is "laughable" and "pathetic," and that he is not "anti-science." "I want all scientific inquiry to happen not just what the ruling clique calls science."